A Gypsy In Auschwitz: How I Survived the Horrors of the ‘Forgotten Holocaust’

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These chapters are key reading for anyone wishing to understand why this community is distrustful of those in authority. This book although a little simplistic will act as a valuable first hand transcript and help ensure the atrocities are not forgotten. Mengele conducted scores of experiments on Roma and Sinti children and in just a few paragraphs it's chilling to note how he won their trust; Otto himself acknowledges that he only heard about his experiments after 1945 and at the time would never have believed he had such evil intent. When Otto tries to refuse doing that same work, his superiors say he can't refuse to work and that he has to contribute.

It is a hard-hitting story through the eyes of Otto and one that needs to be learned from if we ever want to live in peace.

He sensitively describes those who clearly lost their minds and how emotionally shattered everyone was from being constantly surrounded by violence and death.

However, when he goes looking for reparations for his time in the concentration camps and the murder of so much of his family, he says "I had to go to the district court, only to be told that I wasn’t a real German and had no ties to Berlin. The Sinti are a subgroup of the Romani people, an Indo-Aryan ethnic group often referred to with the pejorative term "Gypsy. I loved that the book used photographs as part of the story too, it really did bring Otto’s history to life.Many works of fiction articulate and capture the horror of Jewish characters and their plight leaving other groups out of the picture. It was certainly great deal of luck and he believed a protective hand held over him, shielding him from harm. Trying his best to survive he worked hard and scrounged for food whenever possible, as well as being a witness to some horrific violence. Ethnic Germans come to sightsee in the camp, as "The camp caused a great deal of curiosity: lots of people would come and take photos, and on a few occasions, they sneaked into the camp itself.

It emotionally hurts to the point of your heart aching to how they then got treated during this difficult time. When their documents are stolen or destroyed, they can't prove how many family members have been murdered by the state. One morning they were loaded into trucks by the stormtroopers and the police, removing them from a private camp. Left to our own devices, we would never have pitched up in such a spot, not least because our laws forbid it. After reading Witold Pilecki's report on his time in Auschwitz-Birkenau gathering information on the camp, I have enough background knowledge to fill in the gaps of what happened to Otto Rosenberg that he didn't say.this is where the story of Otto gets really hard and where we meet the side of the Gypsies' stories. I think what really rattled my cage about Otto's account was recognising the bureaucracy of the German nation, which is still a foundation of their structure today.

The story is powerful and emotional , one everyone should take the time to read, because as those that suffered and survived die, the risk is people will forget, so it is upon us to keep those events alive, so they never happen again.I actually had to put it down at some points because it was just too overwhelming and I needed time to process my thoughts.